Saturday, May 25, 2013

Mars Komagatake 22yo and 24yo

The two new Mars releases we wrote about in our TIBS/Whisky Live 2013 report have now been released. Just to refresh your memory: there’s a 22yo and a 24yo, and both are vattings of 4 casks, but they’re very different, indeed.

The Mars Komagatake 22yo is a vatting of two American White Oak casks (#1042 and #1039), an ex-sherry cask (#384) and a refill (ex-Scotch) cask (#481), bottled at 43% abv (750ml) and with an outturn of 1,359 bottles. This retails for around 9,000 yen. Then, there’s the 24yo – and that’s really special. During yearly routine checks of their mature stock, the whisky makers at Mars discovered a quartet of ex-bourbon casks that they really liked. On further inspection, it became clear that the level in each of the casks was very low and that a release as single cask(s) was out of the question. So, they put the contents of the 4 casks together and bottled them at vatting strength (58%abv, also 750ml). The outturn? A mere 120 bottles.

It shouldn't be too hard to find the 22yo. To secure a bottle of the 24yo however, you may have to jump through a few hoops (no pun intended). It would surprise me if the few retailers who actually managed to get hold of a few bottles have the chance to put it on their shelves/online. But you never know…

Whisky Bars Kyoto

A few Links

Introduction

This site is probably the most comprehensive source on the Japanese whisky scene in English. It is also independent. No one who writes for Nonjatta is employed or paid by Japanese distillers and/or retailers.